Re: OT: sorta OT: cases: please help...

aniye nicole dobrowski:

> --- Patrick Jarrett froge sionk:
> <snip>
> > In english the
> > Genitive
> > would be using 's as in Mike's car. Or it uses "of" like "one of
> > us." There
> > are other signs also.
> so the possessor would be in genitive case but not the possession?
> that would explain a lot...
> to make sure i actually understand this:
> the monkey scratched his head.
> so 'his' would be in genitive case, but head would be accusative (as
> in the object of his scratching...?)... and of course monkey would be
> nominative (i think i actually understand that one...:)
> what about in the "one of us" example? would 'one' or 'us' be
> considered genitive (and what would the other one be?)
Actually, this isn't a genitive, since it's not really possession. The "us" doesn't
really possess the "one". This is what's called "partitive"

one 1stplural-partitive

or in Silindion (my conlang):
ala hyalim-iksi
one us-ABLATIVE-partitive particle.

Hmm..perhaps mine isnt the best to show this, since partitive is not a case but something
that can be used with most cases.

But anyway, the partitive basically shows that something is part of a whole so that:

one of us  means  that there is one person as part of the whole.

er....does that help?

<more snippage>
> > Instrumental: Used when talking about when something was
> > accomplished with
> > something. I dug a hole with a shovel. - with a shovel would be
> > instrumental.
> >
> here are some of the examples my polish professor gave us:
> 'i write with a pen'... ok that works 'pen' is in the instrumental
> case, but the next example is: 'i am a student'... huh? what?
> wouldn't both 'i' and 'student' be nominative?
Neep....I would hope so....

sorry can't help there!

Elliott